How Can I, Mira?
by Julle Hycan
Summary: (Deet x Rian) fic from Rian's POV about how he meets and develops feeling for a gentle Grottan. Only first chap up, it's not into the good part yet, it's mostly angsty. I have an epic plan tho! Rated T just in case, for possible-smut moments, violence, and probably something else I can't recall. Based off Netflix's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.


**How Can I, Mira?**

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Chapter **1** \- Death of My Trust

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Word Count:(GOAL 1,800 NO BACKING DOWN) 1,431

_"whispers"/thoughts_

"talking"

**dreamfasting**

**"shouting"**

*flashbacks*(flashback or dreamfast shouting will be a combo)

(author notes, duh)

emphasis/emotion

(Note: the key always applies, its a hint to otherwise hidden things.)

_**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN OR TAKE CREDIT FOR ANY RECOGNIZED, PLOTS, CHARACTERS, OR OTHERWISE. ALL BELONG TO THRA(JIM HENSON & NETFLIX)**_

(omg im actually giddy about writing this cause im such a fangirl. Ive read some of the comics, seen the 1982 movie and binged the entire series. omg. I. cant. focusssssss. btw, if u didnt catch it, this is a DEETxRIAN fic. some fluff, angst, and some possibly almost-smut if you squint. But mostly fluff so far in the plan. also, not a lot of canon divergence)

(k, so, it's been a WHILE since I wrote, and before i finally started writing the second chapter, i wanted to revise, edit, and overall improve this one. SO, even thought I _should_ be studying for my test tomorrow, im gonna improve this fanfic! (edited: 9 -25 -19, ~11:45p.m.))

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Narrator(i guess):

The farmer, his wife, and their chidling glared, glanced, and peered, respectively, at the retreating back of the strange gelfling. The- supposed -traitor, who, for some strange reason, helped them. Rian of Stonewood clan, of the castle guard. Or, formerly, anyway. Now, however... now he is a fugitive.

Criminal.

Traitor.

_***murderer**_.*

What manner of person, subrscibing to such deeds, running away from the law, would help a poor farmer with his cart, unasked? That was the question of the farming family, as they stared incessantly after him. But he did not look back, save for one sorrowful, cursory glance. His face was burdened as he trudged away through the trees.

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_Rian's POV:_

The sun had started to set both on the surrounding trees and on Rian's thoughts. He stumbled across the soft dirt of the forest floor, and leaned against a tree, gripping onto one of its exposed roots. _I just wanted to help. It's not true! It's not my fault! It's THEIR fault! The Skeksis... _Rian's face screwed up in digust, tears glimmering at the edge of his lashes. _They did this... they.. t-they k-kill- "Oh, Mira..." _He trembled at his thoughts, and grasped the root tighter. Ever since he took back her essence- her remains, her death had crashed upon him like a wave, the horrifying reality of her murder bringing him to tears every time he thought of it. When he had dreamfasted with Gurjin, it was mortifying, reliving when he saw her perish, screaming and crying. And she had looked at him. Pleading with her cries of pain for his help- *"RIAN!"* -but he had offered none. He'd clutched Gurjin like a lifeline after, forgetting all male pretense in lieu of the grief he felt.

He can hear things, sometimes. Her voice, ghosting in his ear. Small, breath-like sighs on the wind. He thinks it comes from her essence, like a memory of her is still there, so he clutches the bottle tighter when he camps at night, cradling it.

He had thought that, with the evidence, everything would be alright. That he would travel to see his Maudra and rally his people against the Skeksis. That he would get Mira justice. His encounter with the farming family showed him differently. _I just wanted to help..._ he feebly thinks to himself. He takes a deep breath and stands, wiping at the few tears that escaped, hardening his heart, his resolve. Looking down at Mira, he manages a small smile, before setting her down, and taking off his uniform armor. It would identify him as a castle guard, being in uniform far from the castle. So he rips off the standard iron plating, and removes the staff and sword all guards learn to wield, leaving him in only robes and leathers. After digging a deep enough hole, he carefully gathers them up, and only hesitates for a moment before throwing them in. As he kneels beside it he repeats what was once his oath of loyalty. "We protect the Lords. The Lords protect the Crystal of Truth." he recites. Scoffing, he covers his equipment with dirt. "All lies." he mutters. He gently picks up Mira again, swaddling her in cloth at his belt, and continues on. Toward the Endless Woods.

He passes miles after miles of forest, and thought it feels like many trine pass before the day is over, he knows he is not lost. He, his father, and his mother are all Stonewood, after all. (Am i the only one who thinks his mother is the StoneWood clan's Maudra?) Though he practically grew up in the castle, he spent a few trine in StoneWood as a childling. His mother, too busy being Maudra, had sent him with his father once he could be separated from her. After all this time, however, he still remembers the way home.

_Hopefully it stays my home, and everyone believes me._

"Im nearing Stone-In-The-Wood". He thinks out loud, "The Maudra should want to see me, with my apparent infamy, and hopefully wont arrest and or kill me on sight." He shakes his head. _That's a grim thought... let's stay hopeful, like she would've told us to._ As he traveled closer and closer, he heard more sounds of the village, and grew morose. Mira had always wanted to see his birth home, and he, hers. They had promised one another, during late-night drinks in the guard's house, that they would see it, together. See those places, and many others they had only dreamed of. The caves of Grot, the Crystal Desert. Now they couldn't. Well, maybe Rian could. See them, for her.

His previous anxieties and nervousness fled his heart, as it was full of the longing and weariness he felt catch up to him after his long journey. There was, as always, a long, long line to see the Maudra, with a particularly curious-looking gelfling at the head. She was of average height, with disheveled and dirty off-white hair. her ears with a bit flatter and rounder at the edges, and her skin was green! a soft, somewhat pale green, like sea-mist or green tea. She definitely wasn't Stonewood, or Vapran... In fact, he could not think of any kind of gelfing he had ever seen that looked like that! As he neared closer, he heard her going on about a "Hup" _Sounds like a Podling name_ being unjustly thrown into the rascal hole. The guard seemed unusually unkind to her, though. Once he called her a "dirty Grottan", though, Rian understood. _So she is a grottan, then_, he marveled. A part of him was stung at the guard's unjust treatment of her, but his melancholy and fatigue overruled it.

He turns to a guard at another part in the line, declaring "I need to see Maudra Fara. She'll want to see me." The guard nodded grimly. In passing the Grottan, Rian took one last glance at her- it was indeed a she as he thought- and nodded in what was hopefully understood as consolation. She looked tired, upset, and dirty, as if she too had been on a long journey. He heard behind him as he moved on, "He's much dirtier than me, just look. Why does he get to go in?" she spoke exasperatedly. (lol i cant even spell that myself, thnx voice type) Rian winced heavily at the guard's response, "Because Rian is one of us! Unlike YOU." Was he really one of "them"? who is "us"? He could see no immediate faults in the gelfling, save for her race. Why must she be the outcast and not he, when he was convicted of a crime, and she was innocent? Shaking his head, he steeled himself to face Maudra Fara. Then the doors opened. He stepped forward into the light.

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(Well! That's chapter one! this took foreverrrrr to write! literaly 3-4 hours!(plus several more re-editing it.) Sheesh! and people wonder why updates take so long! Hope it's ok, i absolutely ADORE TDC:AoR, and since there's hardly aaany fanfiction on it, i thought id write some! let me know how it is and if i should write more, please! im kinda new to writing so kind words please!)


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